Recently, I wrote a reflection article about Patrick Lencioni’s book called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In that article, I did not summarize the content of the book because I feel it does the author and the book an injustice when I attempt to use their words as my own. Instead, I wrote about how the book made me feel and ways that I could apply the book throughout my own career and circumstances that might make it relevant to you reading this at home.
I was fortunate today to come across Patrick Lencioni’s YouTube channel where he provides a summary of most of his models and concepts from his books. Shown below is the YouTube video discussing the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model and what they mean.
Do your best not to use this video as your only tool for learning about and applying this model. Instead, I would encourage you to also pick up the book because the story Lencioni tells helps to engage your mind in thought about how the model applies in real life and how various individual behaviors can cause damage to the team. I guarantee you have probably come across most of those behaviors at one point or another in your career, whether you recognized them at the time or not.
I have read many of Lencioni’s books, but still have several to go before I’ve completed all of them. As this video describes, trust is at the core of every team. I believe this to be absolutely true within sports teams as well. Hell, even professional wrestling where two people are wrestling one another to put on a show for the fans also must work as a team and trust one another so nobody gets seriously injured in the ring. Trust is critical to the success of any team.
But how do we build trust where there is none? The old adage “trust isn’t given, it’s earned” speaks volumes. In my opinion, there are three types of trust that must be cultivated.
- Vertical Trust – the trust that exists between the leader and their subordinates. This goes both ways.
- Horizontal Trust – the trust between peers.
- Relational Trust – the trust between others, such as internal and external players.
I want to begin to explore how trust can be cultivated and what steps can be taken to build trust where none exists. As part of this, I want to be conscious of exploring how trust can be regained after it has been lost, if indeed that is possible. I will post more articles reflecting on other books, but I’ll also try to find ways to bring those books back to this concept in some way, if I can.
If you have any books or articles on trust that you feel would be helpful on this topic, please let me know. I’d also love to collect your thoughts and feedback in the comments as well. Thank you for your help and continued support!
